HEART OF STONE
by Elizabeth Cicero
Summary: After one-hundred and fifteen years of regret for having lost Ella to Frederick Abberline's arms, Rochester is back to his wretched ways of old. That is, until he stumbles upon the one thing he never expected to find: a girl who saves him from himself.
1. PROLOGUE

**Author's Note:** This story is the sequel to my Frederick Abberline/John Wilmot crossover, _The Half Killed_. I appreciate the readers who have enjoyed the first story and have moved on to this one. I hope you enjoy this tale just as much! Eloise and Frederick are back, though the story will primarily focus on John and his mystery Irish love, Darcy Gallagher.

Comments, criticism and compliments are ALWAYS welcome.

Thank you, E.

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PROLOGUE:**

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**Dublin, Ireland**

_February 9__th__, 2005_

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Midnight was rolling around at Whelan's and the last call had just been given. The crowd was heavy, but hardly competent, and hardly aware of a single thing he was singing. Still, John went on.

He dabbled and he strummed. He harmonized and he told a story even he wasn't sure he believed very much. It was a tale about a pretty girl in a garden. It was a song about a lovely bird with shining eyes and a heart torn in two. He didn't even know if he knew this girl anymore, or where she had come from this time, or how she had ended up in his set list this evening. He wasn't sure if she had ever even actually existed at all. Maybe, just maybe, she really was only a figment of the twisted black hole that was his un-life. He let it go for now and focused on where he was, what he was doing.

There was a rowdy mix of Englishmen and Irish drunkards strewn about from stool to stool, window to window, and corner to corner of the little pub in the middle of the big city. There were a few Greek goddesses tossed in, an American or two, and even a handful of Romanian gypsies at a table on the far side of the bar. He could hear them all. He understood each of their conversations and reasons for being there. He knew who liked his music, and he knew who absolutely loathed it. He knew which women were single, which were taken, and which were hoping to be taken by him before the night was over. The latter of which, was really all of them, betrothed or not.

They had twirled and shimmied and shaken themselves in front of the stage since the sun had gone down over the bay. They had dirtied the rims of glasses with a plethora of lipstick shades, and batted their eyelashes over a million different iris hues, and tossed about their hair at different lengths and angles and scents and tints. He counted the red-heads with blue eyes, the blondes with green eyes, the brunettes with gray eyes, on and on and on, endlessly.

None of this changed. No matter what city the band wound up in, or what country they stumbled onto the shore of. The women were the same. The tunes were the same. And the end result to heavy liquor and charming smirks was the same. In fact, he already had his pick.

He was opting for the daring copper-head lingering at the southeast corner of the stage, swinging her soft hips and swaying with his every word. She smiled when he looked down at her and she sang along with his words when he covered a song she recognized. He wasn't even sure if she was Irish, or English, or Russian. He wasn't sure if she would understand a word he said, when he finally hung up his guitar for the night, took her in his arm's embrace and led her back to whichever room in the city she had first crawled out of.

When he finished this song and the tired crowd applauded, he would mumble into the microphone, _"Thanks very much. We're going to play just one more song for you, tonight. You've been great company as always, Dublin. We hope to see you again soon…"_

Then he would turn to his band mates—the ex-pirate, the hippie and the convicted felon—make that same 'prepare to wrap' gesture, and draw his eyes back upon the dizzied audience. He would begin to lightly strum at his instrument, rocking it against his hips in a way that sent the little lass under his spell reeling, whoever she happened to be on any given night.

And then he would take off, beating out the rhythm of the same song as always. It was the song that worked like a well worn charm. It left the women in puddles on the dirty floor and the men in a desperate fit of needing to fill their sexual appetites. It made the band wild with excitement when he sang the words they all knew and loved, and it left even him in a decent enough spirit, almost always.

But he haunted all of them, all at once. He spooked them. He both dared them to cross him and begged them to shroud him in attention. He was at his absolute greediest with this song, and also, at his very gloomiest.

_The dark of the alley, the breaking of day_

_The head while I'm driving, I'm driving…_

_Soft lips are open, knuckles are pale_

_Feels like you're dying, you're dying…_

_You…_

_Your sex is on fire!_

_Consumed…_

_With what's to transpire!_

John plucked more determinedly at the strings of his old Fender and the toes of his boots neared the edge of the stage platform. The women reached out for him, breathed on him with the stale scent of perfume and Guinness and bar peanuts and mint gum. They stroked at his legs and his chest where it was tight beneath the cotton of his black t-shirt. They giggled and mumbled lyrics that absolutely had nothing to do with the song. He laughed, amused because he had to be, because this was the way he'd chosen to live eternally.

_Wretched wandering fool, _he cursed himself as he went on crooning darkly.

The music got louder, richer, and thus, began to work more and more on inducing the pub full of potential victims. The humans couldn't know what his band was doing to them. They couldn't know what all of this was really about, and what the four of them were really after by playing this way for them.

_Hot as a fever, rattling bones_

_I could just taste it, taste it…_

_If it's not forever, if it's just tonight_

_Oh—_

_It's still the greatest, the greatest, the greatest…_

_You… _

_Your sex is on fire!_

_Consumed…_

_With what's to transpire…_

He was singing directly to the vixen of his choice, narrowed into her hazel eyes with earnest attention and every promise he could possibly make to a woman before the morning sun. He smiled, and delivered every line of the song hungrily on her lips, his guitar stirring temptation between their bodies. She was lost and he knew exactly why. She was under the trance of pure, honest want and need.

She _wanted_ him. And he _needed_ her.

He needed to feed. He needed the sweet tang of a beautiful woman's flesh and all that lied beneath in wait, pumping furiously, giving life to her at every interval of the song. John needed to finish the set and call it quits for the night, take her by the hand and convince her that she wanted to take him back to her place, and that she wanted to undress him and make passionate love to him on every possible inch of her bed. He needed to satisfy her desires while indulging in zesty bites of his yearning. He needed to fuck her and make her feel wonderful and carry her down into a dazed sleep.

Then he needed to leave. He needed to decide where he was going next, search out his band mates in whatever two-bit, dodgy inner city rooms they had wound up in with their female company. And then they needed to get the hell on the road to somewhere else.

He had needed so much for so long, that John had finally forgotten what it felt like to want something, pure and simple, and actually go after it.

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_Sex on Fire_ by: **Kings of Leon**


	2. ELECTRIFIED AND RIPE

**ELECTRIFIED AND RIPE

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**London, England**

_February 10__th__, 2005

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There was something about a perfect pair of legs that made men forget themselves.

There was something about a ballerina's legs in just the right pair of stilettos, traveling for miles and miles, only to meet the _'swish'_ of a thigh hugging metallic dress. There was something about a catwalk swagger down a foul alleyway on the west end of the city, heels crushing cigarette butts and arms swinging at the appropriate pace to give off the scent of natural feminine perfume. There was something about a backless number on just the right back, and a sexy smile on just the right face, framed by just the right number of chocolate curls.

There was something about all of this and more, that never ceased to do wonders. And because she knew this, Ella never had a problem fulfilling her every need, any night of the week.

With three mortal girlfriends in tow, no one would ever question her as being otherwise. She was the leader of the pack from everyone else's perspective. She slowed at the velvet rope that blocked a line of patrons from the booming music of the ancient building. She spun a web of flirtatious gestures, smiles, and the lightest, most unforgivable touches, coaxing the heavy-set bouncer. She left him a cruel mess of a man on that back street, under a cloud of spectator's anger in the cold.

Halfway into the preemptive darkness of the club, she was attacked by the swirling neon lights in the distance, the fog of human sweat and too many cigarettes in one place at one time, and lastly, the sound of a cover band's attempt at _Beast of Burden_. She danced a little, and worked her way through the crowds of dirty men and worse women. She followed the scent of beauty and youth and sex. She let her senses lead the way to the middle of the club, which was a grinding pit of grunts and general confusion.

Her friends lost themselves. Then Ella got a text message that read: **Dance for me, Hot Legs. **

She smiled, shooting a glance around the entirety of the club, before she threw her arms up into the air and swiveled her hips deep into the swarm of men. He was watching her from afar. He was studying her, close enough for her to read his memories as they occurred, but distant enough to be invisible in the smoke and inebriated human leisure.

So she danced to please him. She pivoted her waist and rubbed against the legs of gentlemen, until she felt a pair of strong hands take control of her. A man that smelled like too much cologne and too much tobacco and far too much self-satisfaction, grabbed her hips and pulled her back against him. And Ella allowed him too, smiling, moving hard with him to the funk music.

"I'm Henry!" he shouted into her ear. But she didn't give a damn.

The only thing Ella cared about was that _'thump, thump'_ in his wrist, when her hand slid down over his arm around her. All she cared about was that he seemed healthy enough, and alive enough, and instantly willing enough to follow her wherever she decided she wanted go. The only thing that really mattered was when she turned around and straddled his thigh in that _'asking for it'_ dress of hers; to see that he was as handsome as he felt and spoke.

"Ella!" she finally hollered back.

He grinned with heavy hazel eyes and a hungry sort of hover.

"Beautiful!"

She ran her hands upward on his arms, then across his chest and back down to his revolving hips. She breathed in everything he was—the good looks and charm and expensive clothes and executive bank account and even the pretty wife at home cooking dinner. She saw everything he had ever done wrong, everyone he had ever harmed or stepped on to get to the top. She inhaled the woman he had fucked on the early train into London that morning, and the interning blonde in his office over a long lunch and the cherry red-head who was stumbling out of the club's bathroom with smeared lipstick, as Ella stood there with him now.

She smirked wickedly up at him, took his strong hand in hers, and began pulling him through the endless mob. She didn't say a word. She just kept dancing her way out of the crowd, until she was leaning seductively against the bar and waiting on two drinks. She didn't even have to order them, or ask for them. Her old friend behind the bar, Lux, another vampire living in the midst of humans, was already mixing liquored poison into two martini glasses.

Ella winked at Lux and revealed the fire-apple red drinks.

"What the hell is that?" her new friend Henry laughed.

And she laughed back, pretending it was laughable. "It's called a vampire's kiss." She puckered her ruby lips with a luring smile, and handed him one of the glasses.

He sniffed at it with a nervous chuckle that was lost to all of the surrounding noise. But he drank it slowly, as Ella and Lux shared a knowing glance down the bar. She pretended to sip at hers, and stroked Henry's chest as she did. She studied his every move through the reflection of her glass, and then tilted it back as he did his, and watched his eyes dilate with passion.

He turned to her, leaned close to her ear, and whispered huskily, _"Delicious."_ Then, like she knew he would, Henry began to kiss her neck and suckle at her ear and grind against her desperately.

This was the easy way of doing things. This was a cheat code in the skill book of vampires. This required little attention and even less seduction. But still, Ella enjoyed it. She was fascinated by the ease of humans to fall madly in love with visions and scandals and their own urgent needs.

Henry would be the one to initiate everything from here out. He would be the one to take her by the hand and pull her out of the club, into the predictably dark, wet, empty alleyway. He would be the one to shove her against a wall and run his hands over every inch of her, visible or not. He would be the one to attempt to kiss her, the one to risk hiking her dress a little higher for his hand's access to the whole world. And he would be the one to react on his every fantasy.

The only thing Ella had to do was to wait. Wait until he touched the wrong spot. Wait until his lips touched hers. Wait until he made a move that meant the business of pleasure. Wait, and entertain her immortal soul with his earthly charms. Then, when the honeymoon between strangers was over, she would flip the switch and confuse the living hell out of him.

She would shove him to the opposite wall of the alley, no matter if it was five feet or twenty-five away. She would reveal her strength. She would take control again. She would pin him to the brick surface, stare straight through him with the fierce storm of her emerald eyes, finally going in for a kiss of her own. And Ella would intentionally miss, every damn time.

He would scream, one of those wild screams of a tough guy having his entire universe rocked. He would writhe and grab at her and grunt and pound his head on the wall. He would go rigid in his Oxford suit and stomp his shined Armani shoes. He would furl under her embrace and clench his teeth at her bite to offer her even more of his pulsing vein. Henry would pant and sweat off his Polo and surrender to the fiery bliss she could provide him, in return for all the sudden pain. His eyes would roll back and he would fall at Ella's every will and touch and nipping suck.

But something would always break her perfect focus. Something would forever stand in the way of her stealing every bit of life Henry had. And that something, someone, always whispered in the very same way.

"_Spare him, love. His wife Lucy knows he's unfaithful." _Then his laugh would echo through her mind. _"That's why she's having an affair with the neighbor."_

Ella wouldn't be able to help it. Her clutching hold on Henry would loosen, and her fangs would slip out of his vein, away from his neck, and she would gently ease him to the ground in a semi-conscious stupor. She would pat his perfect blonde locks and lick the A-positive from her lips, shift back on her heels and waltz down the alleyway for the street with a horrific giggle.

Tonight, her leg slipped out flawlessly from the cover of darkness and into the glow of a flickering light on the back road. Her silver heel glinted against the wet cobblestone with the speeding flash of two headlights. The '61 Aston Martin nicked the curb and slammed to a whisper of a stop in front of her leg, and she smiled into the reflection of the windshield.

"_Not bad,"_ she teased telepathically. _"You're getting faster."_

She ran her hand down the smooth onyx body of the car, with suggestion in the sway of her hips, and the _click-clack_ of her stilettos. She opened the door slowly—simply because she had all the time in the world—and floated down into the passenger seat. She could smell the bodily perfume of a young girl on him, a French music student, with pretty blue eyes and sage scented hair. Ella smirked, shut the door, and turned her gaze to his.

"That was thoughtful of you," she said with a smile.

His memories ran like wildfire through her brain. Frederick shifted the car into drive as his boot hovered over the pedal.

"What's that then?"

Ella slid her hand to his thigh, squeezing harder than nature allowed humans to enjoy, and leaned in close to his ear. He groaned with a certain eye on the road and a grin wrinkling the corner of his mouth.

"You helped poor little Gabrielle to a cab, after you made her forget her own name."

Her words, whispered in lure down his neck, made his entire body hard with lust. At the twitch of his cock against his pants, he slammed his foot on the gas and the classic car sputtered down the narrow road headed for their apartment in the middle of the city. The only thing to be heard above the rumble of the radio and the desperate shifts of the gear under his fist was the solitary thought in his head.

"_I can hardly wait t' make YOU forget your own name, darling."_

And even with an eternity of hours to fill, Ella could hardly wait either.


	3. FIRE AND RAIN

**FIRE AND RAIN**

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**Galway Bay, Ireland**

_February 9__th__, 2005_

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She had not slept. And she had no plans of bothering now.

Darcy was caught somewhere between the ebony swirls and the lavender strokes, lost in the middle of another well-oiled catastrophe. The old sheet beneath her was splattered with various attempts at creation. Her toes were sticking together with every fallen drop of paint, same as her fingers, and same as her hair, where she had continuously wiped the choppy strands form her eyes. The brush in her hand had been the tool of her enemy mind, and she had been trying to master both of them since the prior afternoon.

She wanted to give up, give in and leave. She wanted to throw the brush back to its box, and kick the canvas to the floor of her studio. She wanted to count the reasons why she needed caffeine terribly, and why her inspiration had run dry the last week. And then she wanted to drown in a pool of cappuccino and curse the world spinning around her so quickly, never stopping to let her back on for a ride.

By the time the studio of her apartment was soaked in grey sunlight and every window was crying tears of Irish agony in the storm, she tossed her paintbrush to the easel. She stood before her masterpiece of nothing, hands on her hips and her blue eyes squinting critically. Darcy winced. She sighed in frustration and rolled her eyes back, as her feet moved in the same direction for her bedroom.

She rummaged and dressed and comforted herself in colors and patterns that would never match. She pulled on her rain boots at the door, threw on her old jacket, grabbed her keys, her phone, and her umbrella—which she opened right there, in the doorway of her flat. Bad luck wouldn't dare touch her now.

Her green boots hit the wet pavement, the sound of falling rain struck her ears like a whisper of the universe's sadness, and she turned for Dock Street. There was a place there, where the blacktop met the cobblestone that Darcy had known for too long, and not quite long enough. It had been one of the first places she had discovered in this town as a child, a cozy nook on the bay, overlooking, at the most ideal angle, the Atlantic Ocean. There was the Blue Star coffee shop, an old record and book store, a single phone booth, and two benches carved from driftwood. That was it. That was the spot where all of her morning's tended to begin lately, for better or worse, inspired or not.

Twirling her umbrella, she skipped over cracks in the sidewalk and puddles in the street. There was a beat in her head that required no source, no headphones or instrument. It was there, always, naturally. The rhythm of this particular drum became her, carried her on every slide of every raindrop, every gust of every northeasterly breeze, to the place in question.

She skipped down to the drop-off point of the stone wall on the road, leapt onto its surface, and walked carefully, one boot in front of the other, across to the other side. The waves crashed up against the breakwater, spraying her wool stockings and skirt with cold salt. The clouds rumbled together overhead and the beat went on, a little louder, a little more ill-tempered.

Darcy's impish laughter flew from under the helm of her pink-polka dot cover. She danced to the music that only she could hear. She risked life and limb on that wall. She spun around and tried to find something in the gray of another Irish morning to motivate her creative mind. She drummed her fingers on the handle of her umbrella, tapped her green rain boots on wet stones, and in a motion as graceful as the sky was angry she hopped back down to the road again.

One there, her phone rang and she answered it.

A friend of hers, Maggie, was laughing and pouring out every detail of the night before. Apparently, in dedicating herself to her art, Darcy had missed a world of fun, and a bar full of interesting men, and an evening at the feet of the most incredible band, some traveling British faction of crooners and seducers. Her friend, of course, had taken one of them home with her.

"Sounds like a bloody good time," she murmured with a smile, crossing the road from the bay. She danced through each puddle, and made a b-line for the coffee shop when Maggie informed her that she was only around the corner from there.

"I want to tell ye all about me night with Noah the pirate drummer!"

The suggestion, and the bite of a chuckle in Maggie's voice, sent Darcy reeling with laughter of her own. Her cheeks burned a fiery pink in the cold, and with humor. Her eyes lit up brightly, and she peered through the glass of the coffee shop window, expecting to see what sort of crowd occupied its depth, curious to see if she could find anyone she knew inside. Instead though, she managed to fall directly into the penetrating gaze of a single set of black eyes on the other side.

Darcy was drowning before she even saw the face surrounding the eyes. She was madly in love with the espresso shade and the glimmer of grey light in the irises, before she was even sure it was a man or a woman. The artist in her saw the depths of two black holes, and the surface of two black coffees, and the shallow pollution of any one of the puddles she had hopped through. She saw something, instantly, that she could put onto a canvas, something that could inspire an entire piece.

That's when she felt the phone falling off her ear and Maggie's voice trailing with it. That's when she saw the distinct features of a man, a handsome, dark-haired man. That's when Darcy's smile took on a mind of its own.

She hurt, staring back at him. Her heart ached. Her hand stopped twirling her umbrella. Her legs stopped shaking from the cold and she felt only the fire of his glare, of his spirit burning through the window. Yet as much pain as she could feel of his, Darcy did not stop beaming, not even for a second. She was locked there, under the heat of his eyes. She was happy to be there, knowing him somehow, feeling and seeing things that she had not seen in a person's eyes for too long.

She saw honest, willing regret. She saw guilt. She saw self-hatred and a desire to change.

Whoever this man was, with his rough hair and course smile and heavy soul, he was utterly fascinating. Whatever he was, with his old leather jacket and worn jeans and skull rings and tired eyes, he was something she wanted to know so much better. Wherever he was going, with that rock n' roll posture, and that gut-wrenching, glass shattering aura, it was filling Darcy with a need to go inside, sit down, introduce herself and claim him, right then and there.

It was making her daft with ideas that never crossed her mind with the likes of the other men she had encountered in town, in the world. It was making her want to shake off her umbrella, wriggle out of her coat, and wrap herself up in his strong arms, warm within the shop, within the space of his essence. She wanted to simply drift off into a sea of bliss in his embrace. It was making her want to grab him by the shirt, push him against the nearest wall she could find and brush her lips all over his—

"Darcy!"

The spell was severed by the sound of Maggie's shout from around the corner. Darcy felt her smile fading into a different one, and noticed herself sliding away from the intensity of her non-verbal greeting with the stranger behind the glass. Her friend threw her arms around her, but all she could think about as she turned away with her arm tied into Maggie's, was the want in her body to touch that window pane, to see if the man on the other side was brave enough to press his palm to the glass directly over hers.

She wanted to know if their hands would fit as perfectly together as she daydreamed then, that they would.


	4. SO SHE DANCES

**SO SHE DANCES**

**Covent Garden, London**

_February 9__th__, 2004

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The peaceful confines of her little music box were gone. The south English sea was gone. Frederick's handiwork had disappeared from around her and she was somewhere miles away. All Ella had to do was imagine standing at the picture window of her studio in London, and there she was.

She pressed her hand to the glass and looked out over the bustling street below. Cars sped around and children darted on and off the curbs, headed to school and the park. Men rode bicycles and women hailed cabs and the shop owners on Bow Street rolled out carts of fruits and pastries and flowers. It was another day in the life of the living.

Try as she might to concentrate on the statuesque front of the Royal Opera House, where it stood in all of its glory at the direct diagonal from her ballet studio—Ella kept returning to John. She couldn't understand why he had ignored her and never spoken back again. She didn't know what she'd said to make him fade away from her mind altogether. She wondered if his attention had been stolen away. She wondered why she couldn't read his memories telepathically, and she wondered why she really cared that much. She had Frederick, and he _never_ ignored her.

The glass under her hand should have been ice cold to the touch. But it wasn't. It was just still under her spread fingertips. If anything, the window was shivering _because_ of her.

But there was a spark of warmth at the sound of a car door slamming below. There was a woman, Mrs. Kensington, hurrying around the front of the Land Rover to help her daughter out of the car. Annabelle was here, battling the tulle of her skirt as she wriggled out of her seatbelt and down onto the curb. She barely stood as high as her mother's thigh, and that was only due to the mass of unruly crimson twists that sprouted out all over her small head.

Ella smiled and her hand slid from the glass. She floated through the studio, down over the railing of the staircase, and landed like a butterfly at the front door of the building. She opened the door and stood adjusting her skirt, when Annabelle and her mother stumbled up the steps.

"Morning Mrs. Abberline!" the little girl shouted with one last hop.

Eloise laughed, petting her wild curls softly.

"Good morning Annabelle. Mrs. Kensington."

The woman with the sleek golden locks and Chanel coat gave a half grin, intended to be polite, but not necessarily of interest. She was more attached to her cell phone.

Annabelle snuck into the studio doorway only after her mother gave her a 'barely there' peck on the cheek and reminded her that she had piano lessons after class. This was Mrs. Kensington's way of being sure that Ella did not let her lesson run over this morning, the way it so often did. But she hardly heeded that, or any of the other warnings that parents underhandedly threw her way as they dropped off their child geniuses and fortune five-hundred progeny.

"Good morning, Sarah."

"Good morning, Josephine."

"Good morning, Olivia."

"Good morning, Lydia."

They trampled up the stairs with their heavy coats and Mary Jane's and falling bobby pins. They covered the dance floor with earmuffs and scarves and mittens. They giggled and told stories to one another and picked at their uncomfortable stockings. And when Ella walked upstairs and entered the room, the movement slowed and the noise level faded. They all stood before her, tiny dancers with proper smiles.

She loved this. She loved being here in a room full of mortal girls, inhaling their life and excitement, made happy by their happiness. She could not have dreamt a better way to have spent the last ten years of her existence. Her and Frederick had traveled for so long, seen so many different places and known so many different worlds, that Ella had forgotten what it was like to be home in London. She'd forgotten where she came from, the place that had first known who she was even before she did.

Sometimes, staring out at the Opera House as the girls danced, she wondered what might have become of her if she hadn't found herself a victim to such profound love, a feeling that had transcended over a century now. She wondered if she might ever have healed that bad leg enough to dance properly again, enough to take that stage by storm, enough even to go back to the Parisian Ballet. She wondered, the same way she wondered about John. But that was all, mere wonder.

This was her life now, and who she was. The sated cheeks of girls aged five to twenty-five filled the rooms of her studio each day. And she, a beautiful twenty-three years old for all of eternity, taught them everything she knew. She harbored talent in those that were serious about the craft, and humored over the girls that simply enjoyed the spins and turns.

There had only been one time, one night, that she had even come close to mentioning to Frederick how sad it made her, knowing that she could never have a little girl of her own. She had nearly confessed her agony in the matter. But instead, she had washed away the thought and every memory of it ever existing, before he could read it himself and know. Ella didn't want him to think she didn't love their life together. She didn't want him to feel guilty or self-conscious or be angry because she missed not being able to raise children with him.

Rather, she took advantage of the girls at the studio. She collected their every breath and droplet of sweat and beat of their heart, as if they could be her own. She watched the rising blood stain their tiny arms and legs and necks and hands as they moved about the wooden floor. She studied their reflections mirrored in the sunlight, and admired that they didn't need a necklace like hers, to dance in the yellow glow of day.

"Excellent footwork today, Annabelle," Ella whispered from where she stood on the steps after class.

She tucked a falling curl behind the little girl's ear, very motherly. Mrs. Kensington was on the phone again—hardly out of habit—and reaching absently for Annabelle's hand.

"I've been practicing in our kitchen," she mused as her mother dragged her to the car, "Just like you told me to!"

Ella smiled from ear to ear, waving goodbye.

"See you on Friday."

Something about Annabelle in particular made her work all the more better and all the more satisfying. She reminded her of herself, as a child, in Cecelia's studio where her mother rehearsed. Annabelle Kensington had that same passion for ballet and movement and life. Eloise only wished her mother paid attention to her daughter, enough to see what a beautiful soul she had helped to create.

That was the frustrating thought that lingered in Ella's mind as she walked through the South Bank station a few hours later. She was one block away from Scotland Yard, minutes away from making her regular entrance into the homicide department and thus, into the office of Chief Detective Abberline.

Even the city's top killer catcher needed a lunch break.


	5. SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL

**SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL**

**Metropolitan Police Department, London**

_Noon

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_

He could hear the sound of her heels on the tiled floor from a mile away. He heard them tapping, click-clacking in that same delicate way. In his mind, he heard the lightness of her footing, that of only a dancer's, before she had even stepped into the building. Frederick hovered over his paperwork with a wicked smile.

He saw Ella the way he'd seen Gerry Malone, the department's latest detainee and his own catch. He could see her every movement, through the heavy glass doors, her body swaying in the lobby of the station, her candy red fingernail pushing the elevator button and the way in which she floated into the crowded lift, inhaling the scent of every officer's arousal. Frederick shook his head and scribbled his signature onto the papers.

He was signing this man's life away, second by second, the way the killer had taken the lives of innocents for nearly two months. Fred had seen every murder, played out like an old film in the back of his head, continuously, for that entire time. Malone was back there where every other murderer in the city had been for ten years. They lived there, in his mind. The intuitive tactic that had once been the result of his own self indulgence was now every bit of him. He was the Metropolitan's clairvoyant specialist, given an office with a view and a lead position on the force to continue doing what he already did best—hunt down London's brutes.

It was the thing he had been ridiculed for in another time. He had been a running joke in these offices 120 years ago. But now, in a world of modern disbelief and supernatural fascination, he was a hero. He was the man they all came to. He was the one who hauled criminals in by their coattails and whiskers, every day of every week. And he had no complaints, save for his own unspoken desire, to be able to tear the heads off of the creeps instead of allowing them to fill the cities cells.

"Afternoon Eloise," he heard one of his partners, Oliver Scott, welcoming her from outside of his office door.

Frederick was out of his chair, flying to the door with his hand on the knob, before she was even able to reply. He ripped the door open to see her moving in one direction towards his office, and Oliver moving from the other.

"Come t' greet me, mate?" Oliver teased, handing him another stack of paperwork on the Malone case. "He's fond o' me," his partner patted his cheek and turned to Ella with a smirk. "Just hides it well is all."

Her laugh was sweet and her smile was bright.

"I brought lunch," she answered the look on Frederick's face by raising the brown paper bag from the corner café. "I'm sure you could use a break from…" her eyes moved over the papers in his hand and she added, "…locking people away."

"Not people," Oliver argued with a raised brow. "Monsters, Ella."

"Scott."

Fred's voice was a suggestion for his friend to get lost.

Oliver chuckled, "Abberline." And as he moved past Ella, he touched her nose with the tip of his finger, playfully greeting her, "Abberline's ballerina."

She giggled, her eyes sparkling as they turned over to Fred again. He stood there in his suit, hands in his pockets, hair disheveled and his tie loose. He was too handsome for his own good. He was too much a man to fit into this department of English bulldogs. This was where he belonged, surely, but her husband was nothing like any of them, in so many ways that they could never know.

He didn't even need to speak. She heard his telepathic plea for her to get inside of his office, smiles, soup and all.

Ella brushed past him, feeling the heat of his eyes on her back as she entered the room. He stalked after her as the door shut with the heel of his shoe. His hands were as hungry as his mind, when they reached for her waist and pulled her hard against him. The bag of food—intended as nothing more than a ruse, a show of false mortality—hit his desk with a thud and her purse slipped off her arm and fell to the floor.

"You left without me this morning," he growled on her neck, nibbling her flesh.

Her hands covered his on her stomach, their fingers tangled firmly. Ella whimpered at the feel of his mustache and teeth clawing her neck. She tilted her head back onto his shoulder and nuzzled his furry cheek.

"Materialization is a wee bit quicker than the train. Don't you think, darling?"

She was teasing him, because she wasn't sure how to hide the fact that her morning conversation with John had spurned her quick escape to the city. She had been trying to get away from his brush-off in any way possible.

"I suppose so," Fred whispered. "It was lonely without you, though."

He hugged her body closer to his, prodding her lower back with the strain in his pants. His hands worked the belt of her coat and toyed with the buttons. He unfolded her like wrapping on a present, smiling into her neck with kisses, feathers of ice. His hands roamed over her stomach, the silk of her simple dress and the lace of the bodice where her breasts fit so sweetly into his palms. Ella moaned lovingly in his ear and he shuddered.

"I'll make it up to you," she said, turning in his arms. "Let's go now. We'll catch the next train home. I'm certain you can take a long lunch and leave the murderers be for a while, _Chief Detective_..."

He knew exactly what that implied. He knew exactly what that sound in her voice was. Fred wrapped his arms tightly around her waist, beneath the warmth of her coat, pinning her to his hard body. He kissed the tip of her nose with soft strokes of his mustache. There was no reason at all to deny her an afternoon of leisure and lovemaking and make believe lunch.

There was no reason for him not to kiss her and say, "Fuck the train," before closing his eyes and imagining the both of them lost in a web of sheets and skin.


	6. LOVE ME DO

**LOVE ME DO

* * *

**

All he had to do was dream it. And there it was. Ella stretched out beneath him, her delicate curves painted with black lace and scarlet bedding. Her cries of lust and her back arced into the weight of his half-bared body. Her wrists bound by his hands and her eyes heavy with need.

The devil in him smirked and he captured her mouth. Her lips were silenced but her mind was running wild with suggestive pleas. She wanted to break that bed for only the umpteenth time since they'd returned to London. She wanted to tear the sheets apart and bite into every inch of his flesh. That thought sent his bones rattling with the ache of needing to be inside of her, to be in complete control, taking her with the full force of his love.

"Fred," she panted against his lips.

That was the starting line and the ringing shot. His hands were firm, gripping the suppleness of her cool skin, her breasts and arms and hips. He left kisses in the wake of his fingertips' brush, and the bed rocked gently with the mock thrusts of his hips against her. Ella's long dark twists of hair rolled off the edge of the mattress, flowing in the direction of the floor with the tilt of her head. She whimpered loudly when he stole her mind's fantasy, and quickly ripped the lace from her breasts.

"God, yes," she panted. "All of it!"

Fred's hand roamed over her bare stomach, his thumb tucked beneath the elastic of her French lingerie, tracing her pink-pale flesh. Her hips bucked at him and he smiled. The garter belt pinching her right thigh was his next move, where his fingers lifted it from her body and released, so that they snapped back. She gasped and wriggled in his hands with excitement that he could feel and hear and see and smell.

"Get rid of it," she pleaded as one of his hands slithered down her leg, smoothing the black net of her stockings. Her toes sunk into the sheets and the muscles of her inner thighs tightened and relaxed, over and over.

When Fred's fingers trailed back to the fold of her hip and clutched the lace of her panties, tearing them straight off her body, Ella boiled over, mind and body. She writhed under his weight and gripped his shoulders. She pulled at his hair and dug her nails into his back when she felt his mouth brushing the wet folds of her cunt.

"Don't you dare, Frederick!" she moaned.

His eyes moved up her body, a smile attached.

"This is _my_ lunch break, darling." He kissed her soaked, sweet center and whispered. "I'm sampling from the menu."

Ella sighed with a laugh.

"I don't want your mouth and you know it."

"No? You've never complained before."

She tried to rise up and find his eyes. She tried to speak clearly and focus on what she wanted to say. But the bedroom of their flat was spinning. It was painted vibrantly with lust and hunger and unforgiving need. It was as toxic as ever to her otherwise heightened senses.

"I want you," she demanded softly. "I want all of you, deep inside of me." Then, her head rose off the edge of the bed and she made panting sounds in so human-like a way. "I want you to fuck me as hard as you can."

The words, once they were out in the openness of the room, were twice as colorful as when he'd heard them in her mind. Ella had never spoken to him like that. No. She was a fierce romantic, passionate and sweet. She never wanted this to be hard or ruthless, unless it had been first cherished. This was something else. This was his Eloise hiding something from him, some deeper pain and frustration. She had erased her own memory of it, whatever it was, to keep it all from him.

He didn't say anything to her, though. He wouldn't ruin this. He wouldn't deny her being pleasured, at any cost or rate or strength. If she wanted it hard and dirty, he couldn't hesitate to provide it. He loved her too much to leave her unsatisfied.

Fred didn't even waste time taking his pants off. He finished the buckle and zipper and pulled his full length from within. His erection was mind-numbing, only worsened by those vile words she had spoken. He groaned and clenched his eyes shut. The head of his cock swirled through her moist slit, from top to bottom. When Ella's silk-stocking legs tied around his lower back and her arms around his neck, he drove deep and hard inside of her.

"_Ohhh!"_ she cried out. "Fred! Mm…."

His eyes grew a richer shade of scarlet behind his closed lids and his head fell to the crook of her neck. He inhaled the scent of her sex and hair and perfect beauty. He teased the flesh of her ear with his half drawn fangs and squeezed her body tightly as he worked his length even deeper inside of her.

Ella squirmed a little, finding that endless bliss with the fullness of his body being hugged by hers. She massaged his scalp, her fingers twisting each of his boyish curls. And when she began to roll her hips down against his, that's when everything went to that maddening level. Only this time, it was mad without seduction even. It was just mad. It was frenzied, a good afternoon fuck.

His every thrust was like a bullet coursing through her veins, or a strike of lightning piercing her thieving bloodstream. Their bodies moved roughly together, chafing intensely, wonderfully. Her wild yelps fell off the bed with her body as it snaked down over the edge of the mattress with each pound of Frederick's hips. Her hair was tangled and smoky in the sunlit sheets. Her eyes were half open to the view, upside down, out of the windows of the room.

There was a single blackbird that flew past, northward bound. And then she couldn't look anymore. She only saw darkness when her eyes were sewn shut, and when her lips were parted with wall shaking, earth shattering screams. When Fred's name was the only word she seemed to know in the whole of the universe. When the feel of him moving severely against her—his ribs fighting against his skin and the knots of his spine like rolling waves—felt like her only shot at heaven, a distorted form from the fiery pit of hell.

_Oh, my sweet! I love you so!_

With those words circling in her head, Ella knew that a century of climax had never tasted nor felt so damned sweet.


	7. THE LIKES OF YOU

**THE LIKES OF YOU**

**Fiddler's Green Tavern, Galway**

_8 PM—

* * *

_

The place was disruptive with noise and far too small for a crowd this size. John remembered when this little hole in the wall had been better known as _The Quay Rift_. He remembered when these same wooden floors would have been strung with the boots of passing sailors and British tradesmen on their way home from the America's. He remembered pirates and their filthy crews, poets who'd had one too many swigs and even those fair Irish maidens strung about in the corners of the bar at his every disposal.

Of course, none of them that he could recall ever had eyes blue enough to shatter glass windows of coffee shops. That thought plagued him, as it had all day, and he moved his eyes over the pub.

It was all so different now. The name entailed that it was a haven, or rather a heaven, for those trampled souls of the sea. Though from where he was perched on the small stage, tuning his guitar, it hardly looked like paradise. It was dirtier than it had been in 1709 when he sat ogling women beside another struggling writer, a very Swift man. He doubted that anyone in this pub would believe his story now. He doubted too, that even a handful of them had ever read that little known tale about Gulliver and his travels.

His fingers moved over the strings of his guitar with a strum of annoyance. He thought about that night on the cusp of the 18th century, when he had shared a table and stories and a girl or two with a man named Jack. He remembered how eloquently he had spoken in his ill age and how still, the women flocked to him. He remembered how that sea rouge had owned this place that night, how he had swaggered and swigged and laughed full-bellied laughs. John remembered how that night had left him as shitfaced as his immortality would allow, and he laughed a full-bellied laugh now, too.

There was another fifteen minutes or so before their first set began. His band mates were scattered in the crowds, mingling with local friends and beautiful women. John just shook his head, stole a gulp of beer from someone else's glass on the edge of the stage, and leaped off.

"Hey'a Johnny boy!"

"Johnny, love!"

"Rock on, John!"

They shouted and patted his back and smiled his praises as he maneuvered through their bodies. He threw back a few handsome grins and touched a few rosy cheeks of a few pretty girls. But he did not stop, for fear of wanting to bite them all one by one and satisfy his greedy appetite.

His boots landed in front of the bar and his friend Morrissey looked up with a dark smile. John thought of Ella then, and how she had once told him that some of her best vampire friends in London were bartenders. She had a theory about that, one he couldn't remember now to save his life. He only knew that his old mate Morrissey would have found it entertaining, being the seaside, mortal enthused vampire that he was.

"Guinness John?"

"Yeah, and give me a green shot."

A beer appeared first on the bar in front of him, and was closely followed by a shot of olive whiskey. That was going to be the only optional route for tonight. In order to forget about how depressed he was—over the uncouth folk come to hear him sing and the fact that he still could not seem to get the image of two blue eyes behind glass out of his head—John had to start doing shots and not quit until the last call was made. Even then, he'd probably start pouring his own.

"Do us a favor," Morrissey shouted over the bar, "An' try singing some songs that we rat Irish drunks can keep up with tonight."

John threw a laugh at him and tossed back the shot. It burned his throat but that didn't mean anything. It would take half the bottle of Bushmill's before he felt a damn thing.

"What would you like, then? A Beatles cover or two?"

Morrissey smirked evilly, filling John's shot glass again before moving down the bar. He threw back this one even more soundly and growled to the biting end of fire that coiled in his gut. It felt good. It made the chaos in the bar a little more bearable. Well, that and the sound of a woman's voice beside him.

"Watch it," she warned as he turned. "You'll be on your arse before the band even starts."

John grinned, leaning close to the ginger haired, emerald-eyed beauty. His voice was a raspy whisper down her freckled neck.

"I _am_ the band, love."

She smiled and turned her eyes up brightly.

"John Rochester."

"The same," he replied with an outstretched hand. "And you must be the girl in the song."

Her expression was a curious twist.

"What girl, in what song?"

John's body was slant, his back to the bar ledge and his eyes cast sidelong across her pearly face. There was something about those red-haired Irish gals that did something to men, especially a vampire like him.

Finally he said, "You know. The girl I'm going to sing about tonight."

And she beamed, cheeks a fiery blush.

"Lara," she placed her hand in his.

He raised it to his lips with a soft kiss on her knuckles.

"Lara, an Irish goddess, it's a pleasure."

John could see the rise of her blood under her skin, climbing her arms and neck. His body went rigid with hunger that he knew had been fed hours ago. It was just inescapable, that constant need. He was making small talk. He was trying to get a feel for the woman he intended to have and taste and sink his teeth into.

"What's a beauty like you doing, sitting at the bar alone?"

She took a moment to answer, but she did. They always did with him.

"Same ole' story. I fell in love with an artist, a painter actually. He sailed away for France about a year ago."

"Bloody painters," John reassured her. "You can't trust the lot of them."

"He was a good man…" she trailed, her eyes falling away.

He tilted his head at her with a smile that made her green eyes glow again. Even for his routine of taking advantage of women, he never had liked to see one cry. No halfway decent man ever liked to see a woman cry, or even come close, the way he feared Lara was. He wasn't a monster, as much as the world had convinced him he was.

"But?" he offered.

"But," Lara concluded with a sigh and a sip of her beer. "He was looking for something else, I guess."

"And he found that somewhere other than in these sweet arms."

His thumb trailed down the length of her arm and his eyes grew heavy.

"Last I heard he was married t' an American pop star. Isabelle Taylor." She made a snide laugh and took another drink. "She's having his baby, and _that_, is why I'm sitting here at the bar alone."

John knew the name of the American girl. He knew her music, as everyone did. He could see where a man might have fallen for the little golden haired crooner, but he couldn't see why any man would toss aside a woman like Lara.

He made it his mission to convince her that she was stunning, truly. He set his sights then, at that moment, to make this beautiful human his muse for the night. He would worship and praise her, and let her use him to get revenge on the man that left. He would live inside of her every moan, especially those that he knew she would make when he at last, had a taste of that ginger blood.

It was such an excellent plan. And John was sure it would have been the first good night he had spent with a woman in a long while, if not for the scene that stared him blindly in the face, as the crowd around the bar parted. He looked up with a boyish grin that Lara had put on his face. And that grin deepened at the sight of two blue eyes, the color of wet sea glass, shifting in the darkness of the pub.

There she was. _Darcy. _

And there was his band mate, Noah. John sank to the stool beside Lara, absently watching his friend and the blue-eyed, black-haired pixie at a distance. He could hear every distracting thought Noah was thinking, about her breasts and hair and lips. He could hear him wooing her with his tales of the pirate seas, of those adventures that he pretended had been yesterday, but that John knew, were centuries old. He knew she would fall for it, too.

He had to hand it to his old friend, he had a way with story-telling that he had undoubtedly stolen from the man who had first sailed him to this emerald isle the night that John himself, had learned to make those full-bellied laughs. Noah was as good as the good Captain Sparrow who took him under his wing and John certainly couldn't blame him for having found the most delightful creature in town, in Ireland, in the world.

The only thing he wished now was that he could read the girl's thoughts. He wished he could know what all of her smiles and head tilts were for. He wished he could know what she thought of Noah. And then, when her eyes drifted through the crowd and landed directly on his black ones, for the second time that day, John wished he could know what she thought of him.

He smiled. And she just stood there, yards away, the shock and nervousness rippling like ocean squalls against her irises.


	8. EDGE OF DESIRE

**EDGE OF DESIRE

* * *

**

_Stop staring. Stop staring at him ye fool. Stop…_

Her brain was being logical. But her body was not cooperating with the common sense of it all. Darcy was locked in place. The mass of laughing, drunken people between her and him and him and her, were a blur. It was as though none of it existed. They were air. He was the only tangible thing in the entire pub, maybe the entire world.

He was tragically beautiful, this creature of a man that she couldn't comprehend. And it felt so good to not understand. It felt good to not be able to read him front to back, page to page, like so many others. It felt good to be lost in those soulful eyes without a direct route back. But it also seemed dangerous, particularly dangerous considering her circumstances.

Darcy didn't even know herself at times. She frightened herself too often with her own decisions and directions. She was a free spirit and that had cost her so very much in life, in love especially. And for these reasons, the black-eyed wonder of a man could not be so readily trusted, by her or because of her. He looked like a heart-breaker. He smiled like an assassin in the night, out for only one thing at all. But God, he was like a black hole, gravity from his eyes and lips and hands and whole body, dragging her into him by chokehold force. She was afraid of how aroused he made her. She was afraid of not looking away. But she was even more afraid of what might happen if she did.

…_Darcy, you idiot! Stop. Look away. Pay attention to the bass player. Oh God, what was 'is name? Ned? Neil? Nick?_

"Noah!"

…_Noah. That's it. Pay attention to Noah. Smile at Noah…._

She forced a smile, blinked away the dry spell of her eyes and turned them back to the guy from the band, the one that had been flirting with her for most of the evening. He was shouting something to his friend on the stage, something about needing one more minute. And then Darcy felt his hand touch hers, lift hers, and he kissed her knuckles.

"Have t' go play this first set. See you after, doll?"

She nodded absently, feeling those same black eyes watching her, moving towards her through that invisible crowd, orbiting her.

"O' course," she managed with a tight grin.

"Great!"

The young, roguish looking man named Noah, stumbled back. He gulped the last of his beer, slammed the glass down on a nearby wooden bar top, and lifted his hand with a waving smile. Darcy did the same.

But when he shouted, _"Come on, Johnny! We're ready,"_ she realized that his wave was really more of a beckoning gesture, and his eyes weren't on her, but on someone directly behind her. Darcy dropped her hand in embarrassment and moved her eyes to her friends flirting at a table close by.

There was a rich aroma of something that brought her focus back, suddenly. The person Noah had been shouting at brushed past her shoulder. It was a man, a tall man, and he smelled dark. He smelled like something musky and sinister and too intense for words. He smelled like liquor and rhythm and sex. He smelled like everything she'd been looking for and too much of what she shouldn't have.

Darcy turned her eyes up slowly, taking the long way around to see that the stool the black-eyed man had occupied was empty. He was the one brushing past her. He was the one moving into her line of vision. Her heart sank a little, but in no bad way. She was just surprised, and also not surprised. She'd expected this to happen at some point. She'd expected him to make his move. She'd expected to feel this dizzy and starry-eyed, like a child who had spun around in circles too long. His voice, a dark whisper, seemed to both worsen _and_ steady the spinning.

"Whatever you do, _please_, promise me you won't sneak away before the set ends, love."

Her eyes were open wide as his words spilled straight through her. She'd only just promised Noah that she wouldn't leave. And now here he was, those sinful black orbs like lasers shooting into her heart, begging her to stay for his own selfish purposes, obviously.

Darcy straightened as much as she thought she could without touching him. She tossed her wild, shoulder-length hair, and stared at this stranger as she replied.

"I'm not going anywhere."

He just nodded with a simple, "Good", and turned for the stage.

As he left her, Darcy swore she might fall flat on her face without him there to balance the universe spinning around her. She half expected for that same gravity that had pulled her in, to knock her on her ass without his beautiful eyes directing the equilibrium of her mind. When he was there, Darcy was faint. But when he was gone, she realized it was even worse. Without him there, whoever he was, she felt like a star fading into the night sky, all alone.

Her mind was a warped with these thoughts as she stumbled to the table where her friends were, and crawled onto one of the empty stools. She heard Maggie whisper in her ear, "Oh dear God. Give me a shot o' him on the rocks."

Darcy laughed nervously, her eyes moving back upward from her feet. She saw the object of her friend's interest on the stage. Their interest was the same. Noah had called him Johnny. She smiled.

"John Rochester," another friend of hers, Gillian, broke in. "He's something idn't he?"

"Something," Darcy murmured.

There was a beer sliding across the table in her direction. She absently reached for it, clutching the wet glass as the beer sloshed over the rim. Her focus was elsewhere. It was on John's hand, cradling the neck of his guitar so sensually, as though it were the arm or leg of a beautiful woman. It was on the way he threw the strap over his neck and found his footing in front of the microphone. It was on his long fingers, dabbling at the strings of the instrument, making her legs tremble. There was music filling the place. But all she could think about was what sort of music he made between the sheets and what those fingers could do under the veil of a private evening.

Darcy's hand shook and her beer crashed to the wood floor beneath her. She might have been embarrassed by this, if it had been at all possible for anyone to notice. The place was far too loud, though, and far too condensed and far too out of control for it to even matter. All that did matter was the sound of his voice, when it finally broke through the torrential cloud of smoke and lights and noise.

_Stranded in this spooky town,_

_Stoplights are swaying and phone lines are down…_

_Snow is cracking cold_

_She took my heart_

_I think she took my soul…_

_With the moon I run_

_Far from the carnage of the fiery sun—_

She felt as though she was being beckoned by the chords of the song, by the electrifying strums of his instrument and the rasp of his voice as it bellowed over the speakers. Darcy slid down from the stool, her heels crushing the broken glass. She disappeared into the waves of human sweat and clouds of tobacco. She followed the regret in his tone. She followed the sadness and the sound of sought after redemption.

_Driven by the strangle of vain_

_Showing no mercy, I do it again…_

_Open up your eyes_

_You keep on crying,_

_Baby, I'll bleed you dry…_

_Skies are beneath me_

_I see a storm bubbling up from the sea…_

_And it's coming closer…_

_It's coming closer…_

Stumbling into a clearing, the sea of bodies parted and made way for only him and her, all over again. Maybe she was imagining this. Maybe his voice and this song of his and that thrilling beat of his guitar were all in her head. Maybe she was dreaming this. Maybe she would wake up any minute in a tangle of wine and sheets and paintbrushes and self-indulgence. Maybe this was her overactive mind, fantastical as it too often was, playing the worst of all tricks on her.

But then again, if it was all a dream, why couldn't she enjoy it? Why couldn't she just plant her heels right here in this gritty wooden floor, run her hands down her body and sway to the rhythm all around her? Who was to say she couldn't raise her hands up high over her head and rock to the roll of every drum and guitar, every growl falling from that man's dangerous lips?

Darcy didn't even bother searching for the answers. She just did what she loved to do. She moved and spun and weaved and danced her little heart out in that grinding mess of bodily excitement at Fiddler's Green. She turned her back on the band, arms twisting in the haze of smoke and dark lights. Her hips swung and her pink shoes stomped. Her short black hair brushed the blades of her shoulders as she threw her head back, eyes closed, inhaling the wonder of this well orchestrated dream.

_You sh-sh-shook my bones,_

_Leaving me stranded, all in love on my own…_

_What do you think of me?_

_Where am I now? _

_Baby, where do I sleep?_

John was not singing for Lara, the ginger-haired Goddess of his earlier attentions. He was not singing for the unruly crowds or screaming, shaking women with hands stretched for only him. He was singing for the little pixie in the middle of the floor, the blue silk of her dress bunched at her hips, her thighs. He sang just to keep her dancing that way, reeling for him.

Her back was to the stage, but the low cut of her dress revealed to him what he had not seen yet. There were stars, three blue ones that curled around her shoulder blade. With every sway of her arms and back, the bone would move and the stars would move with it. _God! _That was a glorious sight to behold. He smiled into the microphone, his eyes intent on Darcy's body.

As if she knew how steady his gaze was, as if she knew that the instrumental chorus in the song was because he was waiting for her to acknowledge him, Darcy swung around slowly. She stared up at him. She stared right through him and left herself open for him to do the same. She shivered, breathless and loving it. Then, with all of the other patrons screaming around her, she opened her mouth, smiled wickedly, closed her eyes and threw her hands into the air. She leaped around in front of the stage and released a pure, high-pitched cry of starlit electricity. She sent it straight to his ears, his mouth and mind and quivering manhood.

John's eyes went wide and he bit harshly into his lip, fangs drawn in ways he never allowed on stage or in the company of humans. She'd done something to him. She'd broken through him with one perfect shrill above the rest. She'd sent his body rocketing with a pleasure that sex had never even induced. And it was altogether too different for any mix of words or rhymes or lyrics or pretty verses to describe.

Something told him that what he was hearing, a screeching lullaby really, was not what the crowd heard. They moved on as though nothing had changed. They were hardly affected. But he was. He was torn to pieces, shattered, still as stone and speechless. The band kept playing but his lyrics did not travel with them. All he could think about was doing anything possible, anything at all, to stir that sound from Darcy again and again and again.

_Feels so good when I'm home_

_Two-hundred years of chasing_

_Taking its toll…_

_And it's coming closer_

_Yeah, it's coming closer!_

_Oh, you're coming closer…_

_Closer…_

His voice trailed on into other songs, some his own works and some, covers of giants like John Lennon and the Rolling Stones and the Clash. His band had never been good at making or sticking to set lists. Too often the crowd was like this one, dedicated to choosing every song played. What the audience shouted, they played. What was inspired by the moment, they played. What got a room full of people dancing and beers sold and tips made, they played.

Whatever the hell kept Darcy's hips moving that way, John took note of. He studied her for hours, and kept on studying her even after the set.

The crowd went wild as each of his band mates fell into the pit. They were praised and kissed and drowned in free booze. They smoked and partied and plucked at pretty girls. But John was only interested in the one that was getting away, the one grabbing her coat and wrapping a rainbow scarf around her neck. His mind raced and he leaped off the stage after her.

Darcy had fulfilled her promise—to him and to Noah—by staying for the entire set. Even though he was sure he saw something else in her eyes as she watched him perform, it didn't seem to matter. She had only sworn to give Noah her attention afterwards, and that fire, John realized, had been quickly doused. His friend, for all of his good intentions, was not capable of giving his concentration to one woman for the night. He was sure that she had seen what John was seeing now, Noah's tongue halfway down Lara's throat.

On the one hand, it must have been a major blow to Darcy, as it would be to any woman. He was sure of that. But on the other, it cleared the way for him to make his own impressions on her now. And he refused to let her get away before he could.

He saw two pink heels weaving through the melted bodies. He saw a swish of that sapphire silk against the backs of her soft knees. He saw three blue stars swinging from a canopy of black hair, and he forced his way through the mob, his hand stretching as far as it possibly could. John grabbed her wrist and pulled.

Darcy shrieked and stumbled back on her heels. She hit something hard, but not a wall. It was cool, but not a table. It was gray cotton and muscle. Her free hand had landed flat on the chest of a man, the one who held her wrist and eyes captive, when she looked up.

She understood then how the fish in Galway Bay must feel, flopping around on the decks of fisherman's boats, their beady eyes reflecting their maker mere seconds before their life came to an end. She understood better than she ever had how boundless the universe could be, and how small she was inside of it. She understood how a little girl would feel, staring into the hungered eyes of a beast, waiting for it to swallow her whole. She understood, she felt, and still she wanted to be right there. She didn't really want to go anywhere.

"Just where do you think you're going?"

His grin was wicked. It was razor sharp and claiming.

"Home," she replied blankly.

John shook his head and she stiffened in his grasp. Her hand moved off his chest and she settled on her heels again.

"Yes. I am."

"No, you're not."

Was he serious? Was he actually going to try to keep her there against her will? Was he going to talk to her like that in the middle of a crowded room, simply because he thought he had some undeniable right to her?

Darcy gritted her teeth and pulled her wrist away from him. "You're not going t' tell me what to do. I'm going 'ome."

Her heels shifted back, like he knew they would. Her body spun in a cloud of blue silk and tobacco smoke, like he knew it would. She took one step for the back door of the pub, just like he knew she would.

But her one step became a fumble, a twist and a slam. John's hand snaked around her waist, and with a shuffle of his boot he forced her against the empty brick doorway. The crowds and noise and spinning lights formed a shell around the tangle of their bodies in the corner. He cradled the back of her head, his fingers twisted into those blackberry locks and his mouth collided hard with hers.

Darcy's body trembled at the power, the sincerity in the cold fire of his kiss. Her hands gripped his arms, his shoulders, and the nape of his neck. She ravaged for balance. She tried not to completely drown in the spice and musk of his lips. Though she tried in vain to push him off, she soon gave in so willingly to this man, who didn't even know her name.

His strong arm around her waist, lifted her even higher against the wall. Her heels left the ground and her thighs hugged each of his. John knew he could take her right there. He could lift the silk of her dress up around her hips, brush aside whatever damp lace or satin he might find, and bury his cock deep inside of her while his fangs sank into her vein.

He growled, breaking the kiss at the thought. Darcy breathed heavily against his lips, eyes half closed.

There were people moving around them, their eyes shifting into the darkness at the way he had Darcy pinned to that wall, his dangerous hands holding her as if she were his prey. John worried for the first time in a long time. He carefully sat her back down on the heels of her shoes, stroking her hair and face. He always knew the right thing to say to a woman. He never struggled for words and he never stared into a pair of beautiful eyes and got lost. But here he was, for the second time in one day, floundering for air that he didn't even need. He found himself saying the only thing that his lips would allow with this girl.

"My name's John."

And surprising even him, she giggled breathlessly.

"Darcy."

He smiled and kissed her mouth sweetly, his hands sliding down her cheeks and brushing over her every curve. He held her hips and touched his forehead to hers.

"I have an apartment a few blocks from here."

"Okay," she replied immediately.

"Would you like to—?"

"Yes."

John hadn't even needed to finish. They just understood one another. She just happened to want exactly what he wanted, all into the night.


End file.
